Urbandale Lowers Tax Rate, But Residents Will Still Pay More

A change in the state rollback means Urbandale Residents will still pay more in property taxes.

On Monday, March 5, the Urbandale City Council approved a five-cent decrease to the city's property tax rate, but residents will still see an increase in taxes.

That's thanks to a state rollback, the portion of a property's value that is taxed.

Residents who own a home valued at $200,000 can expect to pay an additional $35.

The approved 2013-14 budget sets the city tax rate at $9.57 per $1,000 of taxable valuation.

The FY2013-14 budget for operations, debt service and special revenue fund anticipates total expenditures of $50,293,224, an increase of $8,227,197 more than the adopted FY2012-13 budget of $42,066,027.

The decrease in the city’s tax rate is a result of a 4.5 percent growth in taxable valuation, Nicci Lamb, finance director told the Des Moines Register.

Lamb said departments had to justify everything when it came to additional requests.

Under the budget, three seven-month seasonal positions in the parks and recreation department will be increased to full-time, and a full-time position was created for a technician to operate an interactive mapping system of projects on the city’s website.